Joseph Kanon - Stardust

Finally the smile. “Just old war stories. I’m fine.”

From the corner of his eye he could see the emerald bracelet covering his hand. At the next table Fay and Ann Sheridan were charming Minot, who wanted to get rid of termites. Bunny, apparently still worried about the seating, kept looking over at Liesl, watching her. Jack Warner was telling jokes. The waiters had begun to clear the tournedos, replacing it with floating island, puffy clouds of meringue. And Otto had risked Danny’s life. The one Ben knew nothing about.

“I’d better check on her, make sure she’s okay,” he said to Paulette, getting up.

Liesl, still concerned, shot him a what? look, but he made a nothing movement with his head. As he crossed the room, still half in a daze, he noticed Bunny chatting with Marie Minot, keeping things going.

She was sitting behind the coffee table, tapping her cigarette on the rim of the ashtray.

“I thought I would never say that,” she said, not even looking up, as if she’d expected him. “Not to anybody. And now his son. For years I thought, what if someone finds out? What if someone knows? And it doesn’t matter. None of it matters.”

“Everything matters.”

She looked at him, then made a half smile. “To the living.” She drew on the cigarette. “So, what do you want me to say to you? An apology? It’s late for that.”

“Tell me about Danny. What did he actually do? My father made him carry things?”

“In his mind only,” she said, tapping the side of her head. “Messages he had to remember. No papers. If they had found papers, they would have arrested him. Killed him. So it was safer up here. Of course, if they tortured him, he would have told them-everybody did-but without papers there was no reason to suspect him. And an American passport. They couldn’t arrest Americans so easily. So he was perfect for us.”

“My father’s idea?”

She nodded. “There was a problem. Before, we had a network with merchant seamen, for outside communications. You couldn’t use the radio. By hand. By mouth. And then there was a roundup-one of the cells in Hamburg-and we knew they had been given away. An informer. We traced it to one of the sailors, so we couldn’t use the network anymore. That’s when your father had the idea. The one person he could really trust.” She stopped. “Except me, he said. But he couldn’t send me. So he was wrong about that, too.”

“But what did he actually carry? What kind of messages.”

She shrugged. “To help get people out. At that point, all we were trying to do was survive. Save ourselves. There weren’t so many left. He would travel through Paris. There were people there who could make arrangements, to get people across. This was before the war. If we could get people to France-”

And later to Spain, Ben thought, helped across by someone with experience. By then you didn’t have to be a Communist to be in danger.

“So we used him for that. Not a spy, not like in the films. Just messages, to help get people out.”

“But he would have been hung just the same. If they’d caught him.”

“Yes, naturally. That’s why I thought it was too dangerous. But he wanted to do it. You know, at that age-no fear. It’s exciting to them, everything a secret. They don’t know yet what it’s like to live that way, to live in secret.” She rubbed out the cigarette. “But he survived, you said, so I’m glad for that. They never got him. Well, he stopped when Otto- He did it for Otto. He never came back to Germany after that. So maybe that saved him.”

“Tell me what happened. With my father.”

“It’s not so much to know,” she said, shrugging. “A familiar story. They caught me. My fault-I was careless. So, Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse. We used to talk about it, if the Gestapo- I knew what it would mean. Not just for me. My family. They didn’t have to torture me. I already knew what they wanted, the names. Who was head of the cell? Well, Otto, Goebbels’s friend.” She looked up. “So I gave them your father.”

“And they let you go? I thought-”

“Yes, usually they killed you, too. After you told them. We all knew that. They had no more use for you.”

He looked at her, waiting.

“I agreed to give them names I didn’t know yet. To be an informer. They thought I would do it-so weak, they hadn’t even had to beat me. A coward. With blood on her hands. What they wanted.”

“And did you?”

“Only to get out. To have a chance to escape. I knew they would watch. But we did it, my family. We went into hiding. The Party helped us, the ones who were left. They thought whoever had betrayed Otto had betrayed me, too, so they helped us. Safe houses. We lived like that, place to place. No one ever knew I’d given them Otto. Of course by that time it didn’t matter if you were a Communist-it was enough to be a Jew. So we hid. Do you want to hear the rest?”

“How he died.”

“I don’t know that. Shot, I suppose. I hope it was that. No, what happened after. Not everything, don’t worry, not all the horrors. Just enough to know why it’s like this now. Why isn’t she weeping? On her knees begging forgiveness-”

“You don’t owe me any-”

“Doesn’t she feel anything, facing me, Otto’s son? What kind of person is this? That it doesn’t matter to her. Can’t even say she’s sorry.”

“Isn’t that what you’re doing now?” he said gently.

She shook her head. “It’s too late for that. So, one story only. Something you can’t put in a film. Never mind the hiding, the rest of it. How you feel in the line, select one here for work, select him for the gas. Impossible to understand that, even when it’s happening to you. So impossible for you.” She took a breath. “We were back in Berlin then- the first big roundup. 1942, February. Cold. All of us in a basement, like rats, but still. Leon, my sister, her husband, all down there, but safe. Then not safe.” She looked up. “We were betrayed. Maybe a justice. Anyway, Jews in the cellar, so they came for us. You don’t fight, but they pull you out anyway. Poke the guns in your stomach. Yelling. I can hear them now, it never goes away, the yelling. And it frightens Rosa, my sister’s baby. An infant. ‘Shut it up,’ he screams at her. The soldier. As if she could do something-all that noise, so terrifying. Terrifying to us. And she tries to quiet it, against her shoulder, you know, rocking, while they’re pushing us out and it’s not enough for him. ‘Shut up!’ he yells and then he grabs it, right out of her arms. A second, my heart stops. Now, too, I can see it. He takes Rosa by the feet and before my sister can move he smacks her against the wall, swinging her like a doll, once, that’s all, because then it’s quiet. He drops her like a rag, a piece of- I don’t know. A thump, and then blood on the wall, a blotch, little streaks. There’s nothing in his face. It doesn’t matter to him. This takes-how long? How long can the heart stop? A second, less. And it’s my whole life in that time. Then I hear my sister scream and I’m somewhere else, another life.”

She stopped, almost out of breath, shutting her eyes, then reached for another cigarette, something tangible, right now, and lit it.

“She brought it with us. She picked it up and brought it. They didn’t care. On the train. Until Leon managed to get it away from her, get rid of it. By that time she didn’t know. She was-not herself. So of course they selected her right away for the gas, a madwoman. Right on the platform.” She looked up at him. “Tell me anything matters. Otto’s son.” She reached out and grazed his hand with her fingertips. “If it did matter, I would be sorry. Do you know that?”

She turned her head, distracted by the sound of doors opening.